Read An Excerpt From Eddie Huang’s Memoir Fresh Off The Boat

We’ve been patiently awaiting our advance copies of Eddie Huang’s memoir Fresh Off the Boat, which hits shelves in January, in the hopes of settling our office pool on whether or not it contains a brief rant on Lena Dunham. We’re still waiting, but luckily Bon Appetit ran an excerpt from the memoir on Eddie’s first foray into American Thanksgiving just in time for the holiday. We, like Bon Appetit, are thankful he allowed them to run it; our Thanksgiving experiences this year would not have been the same without the story of a Taiwanese kid attempting to brine his own turkey.

Writes Eddie of barreling past his own mother’s unfounded disdain for the American Thanksgiving spread:

“From that first Thanksgiving in 1998, I started cooking at our house every Christmas and Thanksgiving. I read cookbooks, talked to Warren’s mom, and watched a lot of Food Network. It’s embarrassing, but I would watch every single Food Network show leading up to Thanksgiving. Most of the year, I never watched the station, but I was determined to put together an all-American Thanksgiving.”

Watching Food Network for information on how to pull off a major holiday meal? EMBARRASSMENT. We at The Braiser most certainly never, ever turn on that trash. We pore over great American classic cookbooks for months and months and months and then send Thomas Keller handwritten fan mail asking about bird roasting. We’re definitely not covering Food Network’s Thanksgiving Live Special in any way this year, either. We would never.